28 ent spouses should be guaranteed cov- erage." "There is a bill pending in the Sen- ate that eliminates the support require- men t for divorced wives and widows, but it does not remove the twenty-year rule," said Mr. Kelly. "\Ve also feel," said s. Berry, "that the housewife should be insured as an individual, because the services she contributes are worth a lut of " monev. "As a married man, I know that the value of the housewife's contribution is immeasurable," replied Mr. Kelly. "The Social Security Administration is always Intel ested in receiving recom- mend'ttions for changes and improve- ments. I will be happy to forward then1 to Commissioner Ball, in Baltimore." "Is this a serious or a symbolic ges- ture on your part?" asked a girl hold- ing a notebook. Mr. Kelly looked polItely surpnsed. " Of I , . " 1 . 1 " A course m senous, 1e Sal(. s a man, I can say that your proposals have pluses and minuses but that on balance the pluses exceed the minuses." "}-(ight on " said a chorus of female voices fron1 the back of the room. B y three-thirty, about si.^-.ty women, most of them in their twenties, had crowded into the immaculately modern reception room of the Katharine Gibbs School, on the tlllrd floor of the Pan Am Building, and were engaged in a discus- ion with the president of the schooJ, Alan L. Baker. The Gibbs School had been chosen because it is the leading sec- retarial school in the country and there- fore, the women felt, it helps perpetuate the cllstom whereby women are chan- neHed into secretarial jobs while n1en with si111ilar qualifications are placed in j llnior-executive or management-train- ee positions. The conversation Wc::1S sharp but polite, and all concerned seemed to be Inaking an effort to be reasonable. "How many Inen are enrolled at Katie Gibbs?" a woman asked. "vVell, right now we have none," said Mr. Baker, who is tall and sleek, and who was wearing hurn-rimn1ed glasses and a dark-blue tie with little yellow lions on it. "None have ap- 1 . d " P Ie . "'ïVhat a peculiar coincidence," an- other WOlnan said. "v'Thy did Katharine Gibbs start this school? " asked a third. "Because she couldn't get a job?" Mr. Baker smiled, and said, "In 1911, women couldn't get responsible jobs in business at all. The women who worked in offices were called 'type- writers'-they were actually called that. Secretaries were usually Inen. Katharine Gibbs' point was to get women into those jobs." Someone asked about the school's dress code, and Mr 0 Baker said, "'ïV e don't expect our girls to wear white gloves and hats anymore. I think that was aholished in about 1 964." "I would say that when you're old enough to have children and earn your living, you're entitled to be called a woman instead of a girl," said Ann Di Leo, who works in 'ïV all Street and is an official of KO\\ "At what age does a boy become a man?" "Being a secretary actuaHy dinzin- ishes your chances of getting an execu- tive position," said a dark-eyed young woman who had a tiny \Vomen's Lib emblem-d clenched fist in ide the biological female svmbol-painted on one cheek, in addition to her usual makeup. "Men never have to have that 1 ' , h ., " wore secretary on t elr resumes. " D h . o you ave any men secretarIes working here?" a woman asked. "No, but I was a seCI etary once," Mr. Baker said. "You were r ." "Actually, the job title was 'ad- ministrative assistant.' " The women smiled cynicaIJy. Mr. Baker smiled sheepishly. As the conversation continued, sev- eral women who were standing in a nearby corridor, next to a door marked "Students' Powder Room," talked with studen ts at the school. "1)0 you think women should be drafted?" a student asked. "I don't think dnvbodv should be drafted, but if there has to be a draft, women might as well go," one of the women replied. "You don't have to be rough and tough to write press releases out at Fort Hamilton." "In the Israeli Army, women fight," someone put in. "And I hear the Swedish Air Force is training women to be jet pilots." "Is there much \,r omen's Lih ac- tivity here?" the student was asked. "\Vell, all of us feel it's a terrible thing that you can graduate from col- lege and then the only way you can get a job is to be a secretary," she said. "But I guess we're going along with that by being here. I want to go into broadcast journalism, but at .Iv/AN N .B.C. they told me, 'If you can't type fifty words per mInute and take shorthand, we don't want you' " "The same thing happens to so many women," said one of the visitors "'ïVhen you're in college, you think, I can lick the world. Then, as time passes, the possibilities get smaller and smaller. " T HE turnout for the march and rally, late in the day, was far greater than either the organizers or the police had anticipated. The police insisted until the last minute that al1 but one lane of Fifth A ven ue would re- Inain open to cars and buses, and when the women m lde good their promise to OCCUPY the A ven Ue from sidewalk to sidewalk a huge traffic jam resulted. 'The blare of automobile horns blended with the high-pitched Algerian war cry that some of the younger women who favor a m ili tan t style gave forth. From Sixtieth Street north, Fifth A ven ue was a sea of cars, and from Sixtieth Street outh it was a sea of people-thousands upon thousands of 111årching women, and thousands of spectators, who stood four and five deep. Most of the marchers were young and white, but the parade included women (and, for that matter, men) of every age, color, political persua- sion, and style of dress. Most simply marched, with obvious pride. Many periodically gave the clenched-fist salute of the radical movement, and a few gave a new \'Tumen's Libera- tion salute-the fist with thumb and index finger extended to form an L. There were hand-lettered banners and signs-"Lysistrata Rides .Lt\gain;" "I Love You, Susan B. Anthony;" "Fight Sexism, \'Thistle at Truckdrivers;" and, perhaps most telling of all, "E ve \Vas Framed." 'The harshest and grin11nest sign was carried hy Gloria Steinem, the beautiful feminist and writer for New }T ark n1agazine It showed a picture of victims of the M) l.Jai Inassacre, with the caption "The Masculine Mystique." As wave after wave of women passed., the spec- tators watched quietly and attentively. It was difficult to telI whether their expressions were of stupefaction or re- spect A few men-surprisingly few- shouted remarks of the kind thdt any woman who hás had occasion to walk unescorted in the streets of this city is familiar with, but in the prevailing at- mosphere of female self-confidence their leers seelned forced and vulner- able. The rally that ended the 'ïVo111en's Strike for Equality filled Bryant Park